[Jezza]

I've got just over 13k miles on my car and somewhere around 11k miles it developed a slight vibration w/ a subtle noise when pressing the brakes. I thought it went away but I've noticed it again a few times lately when braking hard. Tonight I was watching TheTopher's review of the new V60 on YouTube and he mentioned he's driven a couple new Volvos with vibrating brakes lately, including the XC40. Just curious if anyone else has experienced it.

 

[Motorman409]

Motorman409

Here's the deal on mine.
~20,000 km (~12,000 miles) the brakes are vibrating at various speeds. Generally from 70-100 km/hr in a controlled stop.
Went to the dealer (I have a very good dealer - Valentine Volvo) and went for a spin with the shop manager - Bill.
He feels it, (he's a car guy) and thinks it's the rear brakes. In the shop, and the rear rotors (run-out) are way out of spec.
Rear spec is 0.075 mm, they are 0.184 mm. Rotors replaced.
Technician doesn't like the feel, back in the shop (did I mention that this is a good dealership?)
Checked the front run-out, and it's worse.
All four rotors replaced.
Brakes are good since.

 

[Gfallon]

Vibrating

Hello Motorman409,
Thank you for your post.
Bought my XC40 on April 17, 2019. I love the car. While driving recently I feel a vibration wasn't sure why or what caused the vibration. Not the first time. After reading your post about the vibration and brakes . I feel maybe the vibration is coming from the brakes? Never had a car do that before. I will be going to the dealer for my plates and I have a list I will add this to the list.

 

[Jezza]

Yes, thanks for your reply, Motorman409. Appreciate the information. You are fortunate to have access to such a good dealer. I'll start to push mine on this issue.

 

[autofahrer]

Hello Motorman409,
Thank you for your post.
Bought my XC40 on April 17, 2019. I love the car. While driving recently I feel a vibration wasn't sure why or what caused the vibration. Not the first time. After reading your post about the vibration and brakes . I feel maybe the vibration is coming from the brakes? Never had a car do that before. I will be going to the dealer for my plates and I have a list I will add this to the list.

Do you feel the vibrations while braking or in general? I have a vibration issue with mine above 65 mph and have taken it to the dealer 4 times now. Not sure what is causing it yet but now the dealership is saying its normal. I have two other cars which are driven on the same roads and I don't feel the vibrations in those cars.

 

[Doctorold]

I took mine in for 10,000 mile service and explained to the dealer about a vibration in harder braking. When I went to pick the car up they said they couldn’t work on it because it was raining and they couldn’t duplicate what I described. Lame, really. I tend to think the rotors need resurfacing but I’m pretty sure they won’t do that and would want to replace if there was actually an issue. I’m not hard on my brakes so I’m wondering why they would be doing this at 10,000 miles. It’s unfortunate but I can see that Volvo wouldn’t want to replace rotors every 8,000 to 10,000 miles because it’s an issue. This is not “normal” or at least it shouldn’t be.

 

[Jezza]

Do you do a lot of gentle driving around town? In newer cars that are engineered and manufactured for longevity, it’s not uncommon that people simply aren’t using their brakes hard enough. In gentle braking at relatively low speeds, there isn’t as much friction between the pads and rotors as they were made to handle. The pads can actually develop a kind of smooth or even extra hardened surface that can lead to poor braking or even rotor damage beyond repair. This Used to be seen frequently on BMWs and Mercedes that were designed for repeated hard braking from high speeds on the autobahn. Seems silly to think you might actually not be hard enough on your car, but it can happen. (For the same reason carbon can build up on engine valves if people are only doing repeated gentle accelerations around town and never really opening the throttle up). If this describes you, it can’t hurt to take that highway day trip you’ve been thinking about and let the car open up a little, and see what happens.

 

[eckman1168]

Just took my car to the dealer after the routine service came on.. I mentioned that the brakes seemed rough when braking at higher speeds and asked them to take a look at them. When I picked it up I was told that they would be replacing the rotors, all covered under warranty.

 

[David1]

My rotors were just replaced at just over 10k miles.

 

[Doctorold]

nvmd

 

[1800ES Gary]

We purchased a 2019 XC40 T5R AWD polestar through the dealer preorder program in Feb '18 with arriving in April'19. It started making strange scrapping/grinding noises intermittently after about 7500mi. It got worse this year with just over 17K mi, so I took it to our local dealer in Athens, GA. Technician first said rear rotors were warped and replaced them, took for a test drive, still noisy so he replaced front rotors. All done under warranty. Brakes smooth and quiet now just like when it was new and like the loaner XC40 we drove at dealer. Otherwise this vehicle has been great and pushing 29mpg since we picked it up.

 

[RJJ]

Hi gang. I have owned 15 Volvo's. Took possession of a 2020 XC40 AWD T5 last October. Odometer just turned 5200 Klicks and has developed severe chatter/vibrations on hard breaking. Dealer has told me situation not covered by Warranty and reason for problem is that I am not driving vehicle enough. Have read previous posts and will be returning to Dealer and Volvo Canada for more appropriate redress. Not prepared to shell out close to $1000.00 to replace all four discs on a ten month old vehicle.

 

[RJJ]

After follow up phone call to Volvo Customer Service received E Mail advising "the issue with your car's brakes is not due to a defect and therefore is not warrantable". "Your car is almost a year old and has only 5200 Kms, your car needs to be driven more". No more no less. Almost a pre-recorded msg used by the local dealer. I own a 2001 BMW Z3 with 24,000 miles, which is in storage 6 months a year and I have never had issues with its discs. My rebuttal to them might be, I guess German steel is better than Chinese steel. Will be following this forum to see what I other problems I may/can expect to run into with this Chinese, assembled in Belgium XC40.

 

[RJJ]

Addressed my situation today. Removed both front discs and brought them to a local machine shop. Senior machinist took a close look at the discs and told me he would bring them back to as good as new status in less than a half hour. He removed loose grit and used his fly wheel grinder and cleared all the surface rust in particular where one could see where the brake pads created a sort of shadow. He charged me $20.00 per disc. Returned home reinstalled the discs and went for a test drive. No more Chatter/Vibration. Machinist knowledgeable enough to realize that it was not necessary to Turn the discs as fly wheel grinder would correct my problem. Hope my experience and corrective process might be useful to other owners who run into the problem discussed in this post and not blindly accept dealer suggestion of replacing low mileage discs. For anyone who has not seen a fly wheel grinder I attach a screen print I made off/from the Net.

and one of my XC40